One of the greatest attributes of the human experience is fear.
“What?! Fear is a great attribute? No way. I want it gone.” I get it that makes sense. We have not been taught how to be in a useful relationship with fear.
Fear serves us in a million ways and is a perfectly appropriate part of the human experience.
When people neglect to develop self awareness in their relationship with fear they become destructive in ways that go against their own intentions, dreams, desires, and goals.
When you do not develop an intimate relationship with the way fear shows up in you, you will find yourself in a trance with it.
As someone with leadership influence I want you to cultivate an appropriate and useful relationship with fear.
I will never ask you to eliminate fear. I will ask you to come to know how fear grips you. I want you to notice the way fear is uniquely patterned in you and acts out.
One of the most important skills to develop is the ability to discern when fear is serving you and when fear is seducing you.
Face it, we have a dramatist in all of us. Our personal dramas manifest differently for each of us but when you and I get scared and don’t realize we’re in the grips of fear our drama patterns take over and we lose ourselves.
When we lose ourselves to fear our responses become disproportionate to the circumstances we are navigating. We start blaming. We become highly skeptical. We feel the need to protect our self interests. We see other people as obstacles. We vacillate between hopelessness and hostility.
Every world war is a function of unconscious and disproportionate fear. Every hostile takeover is a function of leading with fear and seeing no other option.
When control, domination, manipulation, and violence feel like the only options available you can be certain that the toxic grip of fear is leading the way.
The power struggle you experience on your executive team or the minor manipulation you use in your marriage may seem less benign than a world war but consider that the ingredients, patterns, and behaviors are the very same.
We are trapped by an us versus them paradigm. We value competition more than we value collaboration. We are frequently seduced by fear and we don’t even know it. We fall subject to our survival instincts and lose access to creativity. We are living in a resistant state.
We cannot change anything until we accept it.
– Carl Jung
The most effective leaders today are developing an intimate relationship with fear. There is a willingness to accept the unconscious and fear based patterns that can take over each and every one of us. The practice of being with fear is transformative. I like to call this practice emotional sobriety. When you and I are sober we see things clearly. We are not intoxicated. We do not prioritize avoidance. We do not blindly numb out.
Accept that fear is going to come and it does not need to consume you.
A leading indicator of transformational leaders is the ability to feel fear and function well.
So how do you feel fear and function well? Great question.
- Accept that fear is a natural human emotion—you don’t need to run from it.
- Observe that fear creates a unique and exhausting chemical cocktail in your body—it’s addictive even if you don’t like it.
- Identify what you do when fear has you in its grip.
- Do you stop breathing?
- Do you start blaming yourself and others?
- Do you turn to regular numbing strategies—eating, drinking, texting, scrolling, exercising or other obsessive activities to avoid fear?
- Through your observation, create space between fear and you. You are experiencing fear and it is not who or what you are. It is a temporary experience that when fully felt comes and goes.
- Interrupt your go to numbing strategies. Do something different. Try dancing. Make sound and movement that isn’t dependent on a thought pattern or story that legitimizes your fear.
- Develop the practice of communicating your fear free of blame and criticism. This is a groundbreaking practice.
Leaders that develop a reliable practice of feeling fear and expressing fear responsibly are able to create meaningful impact in the areas of life and work that matter most to them. We must transcend our survival based patterning and rise above the seduction of circumstances and conditions that keep us in reactivity.
I would love to work with you and develop your capacity to lead powerfully, communicate clearly, and feel your fear while producing incredible results.
You are here to have an extraordinary impact in your life and the world around you.
Schedule a Chemistry Call with me today and transform your leadership through one on one coaching or group facilitation. I’m here to support you and your team.
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